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A certain salesman's yearly income is determined by a base [#permalink]

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24 Jan 2012, 23:22

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E

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A certain salesman's yearly income is determined by a base salary plus a commission on the sales he makes during the year. Did the salesman's base salary account for more than half of the salesman's yearly income last year?

(1) If the amount of the commission had been 30 percent higher, the salesman's income would have been 10 percent higher last year.

(2) The difference between the amount of the salesman's base salary and the amount of the commission was equal to 50 percent of the salesman's base salary last year.

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A certain salesman's yearly income is determined by a base salary plus a commission on the sales he makes during the year. Did the salesman's base salary account for more than half of the salesman's yearly income last year?

(1) If the amount of the commission had been 30 percent higher, the salesman's income would have been 10 percent higher last year --> 1.1({salary}+{commission})={salary}+1.3{commission} --> {salary}=2{commission} --> {salary}>{commission}. Sufficient.

(2) The difference between the amount of the salesman's base salary and the amount of the commission was equal to 50 percent of the salesman's base salary last year --> |{salary}-{commission}|=0.5{salary}, notice that {salary}-{commission} is in absolute value sign ||, meaning that we can have two cases:

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Because if {salary}>{commission} then {salary}-{commission}=0.5{salary}, since 0.5{salary}>0.

But if {salary}<{commission} then {commission}-{salary}=0.5{salary}.

So, the second statement, which says that "the difference between the amount of the salesman's base salary and the amount of the commission was equal to 50 percent of the salesman's base salary last year" should be expressed as |{salary}-{commission}|=0.5{salary}.
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14 Jun 2013, 03:14

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Bunuel wrote:

devinawilliam83 wrote:

Why is the answer to this A and not D?

A certain salesman's yearly income is determined by a base salary plus a commission on the sales he makes during the year. Did the salesman's base salary account for more than half of the salesman's yearly income last year?

(1) If the amount of the commission had been 30 percent higher, the salesman's income would have been 10 percent higher last year --> 1.1({salary}+{commission})={salary}+1.3{commission} --> {salary}=2{commission} --> {salary}>{commission}. Sufficient.

(2) The difference between the amount of the salesman's base salary and the amount of the commission was equal to 50 percent of the salesman's base salary last year --> |{salary}-{commission}|=0.5{salary}, notice that {salary}-{commission} is in absolute value sign ||, meaning that we can have two cases:

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A certain salesman's yearly income is determined by a base salary plus a commission on the sales he makes during the year. Did the salesman's base salary account for more than half of the salesman's yearly income last year?

(1) If the amount of the commission had been 30 percent higher, the salesman's income would have been 10 percent higher last year --> 1.1({salary}+{commission})={salary}+1.3{commission} --> {salary}=2{commission} --> {salary}>{commission}. Sufficient.

(2) The difference between the amount of the salesman's base salary and the amount of the commission was equal to 50 percent of the salesman's base salary last year --> |{salary}-{commission}|=0.5{salary}, notice that {salary}-{commission} is in absolute value sign ||, meaning that we can have two cases:

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17 Aug 2013, 10:01

Bunuel wrote:

devinawilliam83 wrote:

Why is the answer to this A and not D?

A certain salesman's yearly income is determined by a base salary plus a commission on the sales he makes during the year. Did the salesman's base salary account for more than half of the salesman's yearly income last year?

(1) If the amount of the commission had been 30 percent higher, the salesman's income would have been 10 percent higher last year --> 1.1({salary}+{commission})={salary}+1.3{commission} --> {salary}=2{commission} --> {salary}>{commission}. Sufficient.

I don't know how answer choice A can be sufficient. See example below.

Using your statement:1.1({salary}+{commission})={salary}+1.3{commission}

Re: A certain salesman's yearly income is determined by a base [#permalink]

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19 Aug 2014, 01:25

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Re: A certain salesman's yearly income is determined by a base [#permalink]

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16 Feb 2015, 10:39

Bunuel wrote:

devinawilliam83 wrote:

Why is the answer to this A and not D?

A certain salesman's yearly income is determined by a base salary plus a commission on the sales he makes during the year. Did the salesman's base salary account for more than half of the salesman's yearly income last year?

(1) If the amount of the commission had been 30 percent higher, the salesman's income would have been 10 percent higher last year --> 1.1({salary}+{commission})={salary}+1.3{commission} --> {salary}=2{commission} --> {salary}>{commission}. Sufficient.

(2) The difference between the amount of the salesman's base salary and the amount of the commission was equal to 50 percent of the salesman's base salary last year --> |{salary}-{commission}|=0.5{salary}, notice that {salary}-{commission} is in absolute value sign ||, meaning that we can have two cases:

I'm not sure if you need to consider two cases here based on the question's second statement. It is like stating " if the difference between A and B is 4, I would consider A-B = 4 and not |A-B| =4.

The similar question, which you used to merge the topic clearly specifies that the absolute difference between the base salary and the commission is..., there I can understand the two cases but not for the question above, where it does not state anything about the absolute difference.

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The prompt never stated whether the base salary was larger than the commission or the commission was larger than the base salary, so we CANNOT assume that the base salary is bigger just because it was mentioned first in the sentence. The word "difference" implies that one of them IS bigger, but we don't know which one. THAT is why Bunuel addressed it.

Re: A certain salesman's yearly income is determined by a base [#permalink]

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31 Jul 2015, 16:38

For statement 1, why can we assume that the base salary stays the same? i.e no percent change associated with base salary. If only the commission had been 30% higher, then the answer would be A, but what if the base salary could be, for example, 20% lower? Wouldn't the answer then be E?

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The specific question that is asked refers to a base salary and a commission LAST YEAR, so we're dealing with 2 unknowns, NOT 2 variables. This means that the two numbers are constants, but we do NOT know what they are (and thus, we don't know which one is bigger).

Fact 1 uses a 'hypothetical' that points out that increasing JUST the commission (by 30%) would have led to an increase in income (of 10%). By extension, this assumes that the other pieces (in this case, the base salary) stay the same.